"We have a plan B and a plan C. But our focus is plan A, the essence of which is to get everyone's support" for Ukraine's accession, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
"(T)he presence at the Victory Parade of a country that bombs cities, hospitals, and daycares, and which has caused the deaths and injuries of over a million people over three years, is a shame," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
"According to the participants of the performances, their goal is to remind the civilized world of the barbaric actions of Moscow, which for many years and decades has systematically violated international law," a source in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) told the Kyiv Independent.
"I have great hope that an agreement for a ceasefire in Ukraine will be reached this weekend," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on May 9, shortly before traveling to Kyiv alongside the leaders of France, Poland, and the U.K.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will arrive in Kyiv early on May 10.
The United States embassy in Kyiv on May 9 issued a warning that Russia could launch "a potentially significant" attack in the coming days, despite Putin's self-declared Victory Day "truce."
The sanctioned oil tankers have transported over $24 billion in cargo since 2024, according to Downing Street. The U.K. has now sanctioned more shadow fleet vessels than any other country.
Washington and its partners are considering additional sanctions if the parties do not observe a ceasefire, with political and technical negotiations between Europe and the U.S. intensifying since last week, Reuters' source said.
A Russian flag flies next to the US embassy building in Moscow on November 30, 2023, on a snowy day. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images)
A U.S. citizen awaiting trial in Moscow has been forcibly placed in a psychiatric hospital, according to Russian state media reports on April 6.
Joseph Tater, 46, was arrested in August 2024 after being accused of assaulting a police officer during an altercation with hotel staff in a luxury hotel in the Russian capital. Following a medical evaluation on March 15, a Moscow court approved Tater's involuntary admission to the psychiatric hospital.
Doctors described Tater as showing signs of "tension, impulsivity, persecutory delusions, and lack of self-awareness regarding his condition," leading to the court's decision to have him hospitalized.
Tater was originally scheduled to stand trial on April 14 on charges of assaulting a police officer, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, according to the Associated Press.
Tater's detention for medical reasons follows his release from pre-trial detention in late March, though it is unclear when the court made the decision to hospitalize him. At a court hearing in September, Tater claimed he had come to Russia seeking political asylum, alleging that he was being persecuted by the CIA.
His defense lawyer has appealed the decision to forcibly hospitalize him, accusing Russian authorities of attempting to "isolate the defendant from society," according to Russian state media.
Human rights organizations have long criticized Russia for using psychiatric institutions to detain individuals with political views opposed to the government, a practice that dates back to Soviet times.
These groups claim that the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin has increasingly resorted to this tactic in recent years. Tater had already served 15 days in jail for the same incident after being found guilty of administrative charges for "petty hooliganism."
Tater’s case adds to the growing list of Americans detained in Russia on drug or assault-related charges, many of whom are serving lengthy prison sentences. Other Americans, such as Robert Gilman, 72, who was sentenced to 3.5 years for assaulting a police officer after a drunken disturbance, and Travis Leake, a musician sentenced to 13 years for drug charges in July 2024, have faced similar fates in Russia's legal system.
Olena Goncharova is the Head of North America desk at The Kyiv Independent, where she has previously worked as a development manager and Canadian correspondent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.
Oleg Sukhov
